The
Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell
has been the subject of speculation for many years by Atari collectors.
Now one of the most sought-after Atari 2600 prototypes is finally
available. What's the story, you ask?

Way back in 1983 Parker
Brothers featured this game in one of their catalogs.
Video game and Tolkien fans alike were excited by this announcement,
but the wait would be in vain. Lord of the Rings was never released,
and Parker Brothers reportedly informed people that called and asked
for the game that it was sold out in an attempt to cover up for
the fact that it was never published.

What's the Game About?

According to the 1983 press release,
the game features Frodo traveling from his home in the Shire to
the door at Mora. While doing so, the player must try to avoid the
evil Black Riders as they journey through Middle Earth. Here is
the text from the catalog entry:

"The Lord of the Rings, Journey
to Rivendell is a new adventure game based on the fantasy novels
by J.R.R. Tolkien. Relive the adventures of Frodo as he travels
from his home in the shire to Rivendell. You'll face constant choices
as you journey through Middle Earth, trying to avoid the Black Riders.
Use the unique map to pinpoint your location as you move through
more than 2000 exciting screens. 1 player."

Story of a Prototype

A prototype box was actually created
for this game and was sold on Ebay in 2001. Most likely this box
was used for display purposes at one of the CES shows in the 1980's,
and it is probably blank on the back. Supposedly there were also
mockups sent to Toys 'R' Us stores for promotional purposes. The
actual prototype PCB was discovered recently by AtariAge, and subsequently
archived and presented to the public.

First, you
need to download the ROM,
this is the digital form of the cartridge. Next, you need to download
an emulator - this is a piece of software that makes your computer
behave like a real 2600 and will allow you to play the ROM. We recommend
either z26 or
Stella. Because
this is a new release, you will have to do a little extra work in
order to get the ROM to work in either emulator, although the emulators
will probably be updated shortly to support them natively.

In z26, you
will need to pass the -g3 parameter (8K Parker Brothers mode).
In order to play Lord of the Rings with Stella, you'll first need
to download the latest Stella Profile from Voch's
Stella Profile Page. Then you'll want to append the contents
of this
file to the end of the Stella.pro file you downloaded. This
will allow Stella to properly recognize this prototype.